


The Wheel Turns

by stephensmat



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, Jedi Training, Meditation, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 16:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11717715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stephensmat/pseuds/stephensmat
Summary: "You sensed an Awakening. Light and Dark." Rey said to Skywalker. "You said that the Force guides us to where we should be, if we listen. My path lead me to Kylo Ren's prison, where he could offer me training. Finn's path lead him to BB-8, which would have brought him to you. What if we took each other's path accidentally?" Post TFA, exploring a fan-theory.





	The Wheel Turns

**Author's Note:**

> I had a theory of how the Trilogy could go. With all the talk about Rey's Family, almost nobody has asked: What about her future? I ran with it a little, and this was the result.
> 
> (Originally posted on Fanfic net. Migrating the story here)

"Are all Jedi such sadists?" Rey ground out.

"We're almost done." Luke said soothingly. "But if you give up before the hour is complete, you'll do two hours tomorrow."

She was doing push-ups, with Luke sitting cross-legged on her back, right between her shoulder-blades.  _How_  she was lifting him, she wasn't quite sure, and how he was keeping his balance so perfectly was even more confusing, but she'd been going for almost an hour. "Did your Master do this to you?" Rey puffed, lungs burning.

"As a matter of fact, he did." Luke chuckled. "I spent days running through the jungle with him on my back. When he wanted me to turn left or right, he'd smack the side of my face with his walking stick."

"All day?" Rey grated. "Only an hour for me?"

"Well, my Master was less than two feet tall, so I can make  _some_  allowances." Luke said with placid calm.

"How generous of you." Rey gritted out.

"We're done." Luke rose to a standing position, still perched across her spine, and stepped away.

Rey collapsed, face-down on the grass, already unconscious.

* * *

Rey smelled water. She'd never woken up to the smell of water or salt, and now she had it in her nose constantly. She was still face down on… grass?

_I didn't know there was this much green in the whole galaxy._

She awoke with a start. Skywalker was sitting, cross-legged beside her. She had no doubt that he'd been there the entire time, waiting for her to wake up. The sun was going down.

When she started to say something, he moved. He'd tossed a heavy metal bar, about twenty centimeters long, in her direction.

Faster than she'd ever moved before, her hand flashed to her lightsaber. She swung the blue blade crazily… And watched the bar fall, untouched, to the ground. Her limbs rebelled, and she dropped again, fighting to turn over.

"It's harder now." Rey rasped.

Luke nodded.

"You know?"

"I have some discernment in such things." The Master reminded his apprentice.

Rey looked at him sideways. "You aren't the first one to wave it off as 'mysterious'." She told him. "Han Solo played the same 'unknowable force' card, but he knew more about how it worked than he let on. If you plan to train me into your Sister's anti-Sith weapon, I need an answer too."

Skywalker reacted. "You think that's why you're here?" He said, almost sad. "A Jedi is more than just a warrior. A Jedi is a guardian. A keeper of Peace, not an instrument of war. And if you think it's the same thing, then you've either seen too much war, or not seen true peace. It is more than the job description; it is our whole philosophy. Passion, but peace. A Jedi who cannot find a calm center in the middle of a warzone, or a cyclone, or a duel to the death is not a Jedi."

Rey had heard him wax poetic about the Old Jedi Order and reached out, as he'd taught her. She reached for the metal bar, still on the grass, and flicked it with her mind, sending it flying toward the Master.

There was a flash of light and movement… Before Rey had even seen him reach, there was a glowing green energy blade at her throat… and the metal bar had been carved into eight different pieces, smoldering on the grass.

_Message delivered?_  Luke's eyes asked her, as he returned to the meditation pose.

_Delivered and understood._  Rey nodded, sinking to the grass on shaking limbs as she tried to match him.

"You haven't answered my question." She said quietly.

"Yes, I have." Luke told her. "Kylo Ren wanted to train you, didn't he? He made you the offer. Join him and rule the galaxy?"

"Yes." Rey admitted. "He said that I needed a teacher. It was in the middle of our…" She looked to the saber in her hand. "Our Duel."

Luke was unsurprised. "I received the same offer from his Grandfather." He told her. "Were you… tempted?"

"To join him? No." Rey said immediately. "To reach out and tear him limb from limb…"

Luke said nothing to that, waiting.

Rey looked at him a moment. "It was so…  _easy_." She confessed finally. "It was so easy then. I just… wanted it. I wanted him to take a step back. I wanted him to suddenly be afraid of me. I wanted to take what he was doing to my head and make him feel it right between his eyes. And suddenly it just… happened. I wanted it, I got it."

Luke nodded. "Keep going."

"I wanted the chains removed. I wanted the guard to let me out. I wanted his weapon in my hand and I wanted…" Rey suddenly ran out of words. "Great Maker…"

"You see it now, don't you?"

"You're always talking about the Dark Side, about how it…" Rey swallowed hard. "About how it's easier, quicker…"

"Fear leads to anger." Luke told her. "Anger leads to hate. I had debated whether or not to tell you. If you had known, would you have kept going?"

"No!" Rey said immediately.

It was the first time that she had seen the ghost of a smile on the Master's face. "Then why did you lie to me just now?"

Rey winced. "I hated him. Solo's blood was still on his tunic. I couldn't join that. But when he offered to teach me… For a moment, I wondered what I would learn." She winced hard, heartsick. "I've been waiting my whole life to find out if there was any point to being me… if there was anything….  _there_ , in my reflection."

"I know from experience how incredibly seductive it can be." Luke told her. "To take anything you wanted, to tear down anything that offended you, to conquer everything you hate… And all you have to do is lose your temper. No small number of people would quickly become addicted to their own rage, to dip into darkness any time you needed to do anything that required a moment of effort."

"I could make stormtroopers dance, I could make this weapon jump to my hand, I could fly through the eye of a needle, and I could carve limbs off Kylo Ren…" Rey shivered. "And it was so  _easy_."

"You are not one to take the easy way, Rey. The path of least resistance is tempting, especially for a soldier. But to be a Jedi, one must think beyond 'easy' or 'hard'. Or even beyond 'safe' and 'danger'. To be a Jedi, you must always think of others first, always. This does not mean to deny yourself what you need, or even things you want. But to use the Force for yourself over another is to deny your responsibilities."

"Says the man who hid himself away in a corner of the universe for decades." Rey said simply.

Luke chuckled. "True. I sought isolation. I felt that I had failed my responsibility as the Last Jedi Master. I thought that any move I made would only cause more destruction. In such an event, the best move I could make was to deal myself out for a while. I waited for the wheel to come around again." He looked sideays at her. "I waited for a moment where I could actually do some good."

"The Jedi Way?" Rey guessed. "When you have to do something, but not just anything."

"Correct." Luke said. "The Sith survived by hiding their numbers, only allowing two of themselves to be in existence at any time. It was a patient game that conquered the galaxy. The wheel came around again, and there were only two Jedi left, and it was a twenty year strategy that liberated the galaxy. Then the wheel turned again. It is the place of the Jedi, to keep the wheel turning toward the light. As long as we remain a force for good, then time is a weapon too."

"I wonder." Rey said under her breath.

The Jedi Master missed nothing. "Wonder what?"

Rey said nothing. He just looked at her, and she caved in immediately. "On Jakku… You don't survive in that place by being full of love and passive good thoughts. There was a woman there once, wanted to help the Scavengers. She started getting us organized. Sharing medicine, helping gather supplies, pooling our rations… It was a Co-op, basically."

Luke nodded, to show he was listening.

"She had no desire to organize us into a militia, but the line between support and protection is thin. She lost control of the Co-Op when they started throwing their weight around. She tried to talk them down when it started getting violent. They killed her."

Luke sighed.

"I was a tiny little thing then." Rey admitted, talking about something she hadn't thought about in years. "She put me in a buried wreck. She told me to stay put and wait for her to come back to get me. She was the second person to tell me that, and she closed the hatch over me. Last time I ever saw her alive. I stayed in that box for twelve days. No food, no drink. I should be dead. But finally, I came out of hiding, and dragged myself to water." She looked at him. "We were a hundred different people who had no interest in each other. She tried to help and we became a gang. I left the group and spent the next six years begging for enough food to put off starving for another day." Rey scowled. "If she'd left well enough alone, she'd be alive, and everyone who wasn't part of the damn gang would have enough to salvage without having to live in derelicts."

"Your conclusions?"

"Maybe people who reach out and try to help everyone will always do more damage than the people who simply want to help themselves." Rey offered.

Luke considered. "I… cannot say you are wrong. I thought to restore the Jedi Order. My father wanted to free slaves. Look what we set loose."

"Darth Vader." Rey said. Her tone had changed, becoming slightly hushed. The way small children spoke of scary monsters that they weren't sure was real.

"How much do you know about him?" Skywalker asked, looking at her sideways.

Part of her wanted to keep it a secret. Knowledge was survival. It meant that nobody else could find your stash, nobody else knew where you sleep, or where the good salvage was, or where to find water.

But the rules were different now, and she knew it. "He was your father." Rey said.

"Leia told you?"

"She told me that you were her brother. She told me that Han was her husband. I knew that Kylo Ren was Vader's grandson, and I found out Han was his father… just before Ren killed him."

Luke nodded, looking ancient.

"So, I know that the Force is strong in the Skywalker family… And I knew Han had only married into it, so that left you." Rey summed up.

His eyes probed her. "Ask your question."

"I grew up on a desert world, not knowing anything of The Empire, or the Jedi… But apparently I've always been strong with a Force that I didn't know existed. I'm told that it runs strong in bloodlines, which is how Leia knew Han had fallen…" She pointed to the horizon. I dreamed of the ocean every night, and an island that I was meant to visit. But I cannot remember ever seeing more than a trough full of water at any time in my life. I didn't know what an ocean  _was_. So how can I dream of this world? Why would the Force lead me here, when I had no idea it was even real?"

"Ask your question." Luke commanded.

"Are you my…" Rey chickened out and rephrased it. "Am I a Skywalker too?"

Luke sighed. "My first teacher told me that Darth Vader murdered my father. When I began my own training, I swore to avenge him. At the time, there were only two Jedi left in the universe, and they were… broken. Old men hiding in the farthest corners of the galaxy. Then one of them handed me my father's sword and told me I could follow in my father's footsteps, to become a Jedi Knight… Or I could go home to my father's farm, trying to find water in desert sands for the rest of my life."

The thought chilled her a moment. She had seen old women on Jakku, still scrubbing salvage clean with their wrinkled, arthritic hands. Part of her had wondered if she was going to be eighty years old, still... waiting.

But then Rey's face hardened. "Your first Master lied to you, so that you would fight Vader for the Jedi… Because you'd give your life over to training as a Knight for the chance to  _avenge_  a father you'd never met, but you wouldn't kill him."

"Not even to free the galaxy." Luke agreed. "He said, that what he told me was true, from a certain point of view. He's right. It took losing my nephew to the Dark Side to make me appreciate that 'point of view'."

"When did you find out the truth?" She asked him suddenly.

The Master looked at his droid hand, making a fist with it absently. "When I lost that Lightsaber. I lost so much more than my hand in that fight."

Rey felt the saber on her belt. She had felt it calling to her off and on since she'd entered Maz's Cantina. It wanted to be in her hand.  _How many people did Vader slay with this blade?_  She asked herself.  _And now it calls to me._

He looked at her. "Now, if you  _were_  a Skywalker, my young Apprentice… That would make Kylo Ren part of  _your_  family too. After being taken by surprise in the worst way myself… Do you think I would hide that from you?"

Rey forced herself to look him in the eye. "I think you've also spent years in exile, coming to appreciate your first Master's Point of View… Waiting for a chance to strike back against your own mad apprentice." She didn't flinch when he looked at her. "Waiting for the wheel to come around again."

Luke's mouth twitched. He almost found that amusing. "It seems we were right, then. Maybe doing good is far more dangerous than doing evil."

It would take a few hours for her to realize that he hadn't actually answered her question.

* * *

He fed her for the first few days, and then it became her own task to provide food. Turning seawater into drinking water was not impossible, but much harder with the kind of equipment the Exile kept on a tiny island in the middle of an ocean. Catching fish should have been easy; but she found it oddly difficult.

When he had demonstrated, he was balanced on one foot, on a three inch wide pole that extended down into the seawater so deep that she couldn't see it's base. It had probably started as a foundation for a dock, but he'd never built onto it. There were almost a dozen such foundations, each of them only a few inches wide, about ten feet apart.

While she watched from shore, he jumped from one to the next easily. When he was on the final point, easily thirty feet out, he went into a crouch; still on one foot; and snatched a fish out of the water, barehanded.

Her morning training was to make those same leaps. She never made it past the second one before tipping over and bellyflopping into the ocean.

He had been there to catch her the first time; and she was glad for it. She'd never learned how to swim. Nevertheless, after teaching her enough swimming to avoid drowning, getting fish became her task; every day.

Rey managed to make it as far as the third pole after two hours of swimming back to shore and trying the leap again. She could see fish down below, and tried to catch one quickly. The sudden movement put her facedown in salt water again. And again. And again.

The first day's fishing failed. Skywalker had his dinner on the first try.

Rey wasn't worried. She'd gone to bed hungry before. Most of her life, in fact.

But day two came and she got frustrated. Skywalker had forbidden her to simply yank a fish out with the Force. He wanted her to learn balance, reflexes, observation, timing… She was determined to do it his way. She'd taken the easy way due to frustration once, and used the Dark Side. She had no doubt the Master was watching her carefully on that score.

But on day two, once she had mastered the balance she needed, she still couldn't get close enough to catch anything.

* * *

"It's a fish." She complained. "It has the IQ of a rock, and yet I can't seem to outsmart it enough for the two seconds I need to get a grip."

"The water distorts the visible light spectrum." He told her. "You've never seen a lake before. Dip your hand in. See how your fingers seem to ripple and stretch?"

Rey did so, and found he was right. The sight was fascinating. She'd never had the chance to learn such a thing.

"The fish you want to catch is never where you think it is." Luke counseled her. "Your eyes will deceive you. Don't trust them."

* * *

Day Three of the task, and as dawn broke, Rey let out a whoop that would have been audible in orbit. She came running to the master's home, with a wriggling fish in her hand. "I did it! I did it!" She was jumping up and down, thrilled with success.

Skywalker promptly took the fish from her hand. "Well done." He went to the kitchen. "So, what are you having?"

She snatched the fish back. "Oh, don't you dare! I haven't eaten in two days! I earned this."

"Okay." Skywalker said, ever so reasonable. "Do you intend to eat it raw?"

Rey heard that, and froze. She was in his kitchen, and everything she needed was there; but she had no idea how to prepare a fish. Did she cut the head off first? Did she set aside the fins? Was there any toxic parts to trim away?

"Have you ever prepared a meal before?" Luke asked her gently.

Rey shook her head. "No. I found some Womp Eggs once… You have to gobble them down raw, because the mother will keep chasing you if she sees you holding it… The Rations you just… mixed the bags together and they form a Portion…" Rey sank in on herself. "I've been looking after myself so long, and I just realized how… functionally useless I am."

"Nonsense. You have common sense, you have boldness to act; you have skill and natural talent in many things." Skywalker listed her qualifications and she was surprised. She didn't think he could so easily compliment anyone. "You inspire loyalty and friendship, you certainly have courage and most important of all, you're eager to learn. You simply have never been anywhere that you needed to learn a new skill before." He smiled. "Much as I was at your age." He held up a hand, and a knife flew from his kitchen rack to his hand. "Your training is more than meditation, Apprentice. There are any number of skills you will need." He casually took the fish out of her hand. "So go get another one; and I'll give you a lesson."

Rey set her jaw. "Y'know, for two people raised in the desert; we're awfully possessive of seafood."

His laughter followed all the way back to the water.

* * *

There were supposedly some trees at the top of the island. Luke had told her to bring her firewood. She had searched the whole thing, and not found any trees. By the end of the day, her lungs were burning, her legs were burning, her limbs were shaking…

The sun set, and she knew not to go back with empty hands. She was freezing.

She had never slept in the open before. Jakku got as cold as any desert planet during the night; but she was always in her hiding place by then.

* * *

_This isn't working._  She told herself.  _Think. His tasks are always about learning a new skill and getting stronger with the last one. What is the trick he expects you to learn?_

She closed her eyes and reached out to the Force.  _Show me._

When she opened her eyes, she heard birds.

_Birds._  She thought.  _Birds are supposed to nest in trees, right? You heard them in the other forests._

* * *

She followed the birdcall. The entire island was made of paved stones, warn smooth and stacked to cover the entire island with stairs, plazas, housing, tables… But between two stacks, a space opened up above eye level.

Rey gathered herself for a leap, and made it the ten feet to look between the gap. Sure enough, on the far side of the island, there was a grove of green leafy trees.

It took some work to get around to the trees, but she found the path; and then drew her her lightsaber…

...and froze. The Force sang to her of fear. Tiny fear. But it wasn't coming from her.

Rey held her breath and followed her senses. The trees weren't particularly big. There were branches, but not many. Not much dead wood either. If she was going to get firewood, she would have to carve branches down… And destroy the nests. Little baby birds calling for a feed from their mother.

She had always had an affinity for machines. Animals less so, but she hadn't met too many of them… She could see their little faces. They were adorable.

She had been dragging herself up and down the mountain for a day and a half trying to find these trees. The master had given her this task. But… They were so  _cute_.

Rey set her jaw. "Do you have  _any_  idea the push-ups I'm going to have to do because of you bird-brains?"

* * *

"You are empty-handed, apprentice." Skywalker commented without turning.

"I am." Rey agreed. "The only trees I could find would mean destroying the homes of some animals." Saying it out loud seemed ridiculous.

"And this is important?" He looked at her sideways.

"Yes." Rey nodded. "Besides, if the trees are that small, then it means carving them up for firewood won't work for more than a few days."

"Good answer." Luke reached out and pulled a tarp aside… revealing a stack of firewood, already cut. "The Force isn't predatory."

"Tell that to the fish."

"There is no evil in having to eat." The Jedi told her. "The ocean is plentiful here, and the soil is no good for farming. With so few land masses, those birds are endangered. The Galaxy is rich enough to provide for all it's creatures without having to hunt any to extinction." He slid a plate over to her. Breakfast was served. "Congratulations on finding the trees. I didn't make it easy for you."

Rey rolled her eyes. "You make it difficult to like you." She scoffed. "If the tasks are all done, you don't need me. Why am I here, then?"

"Your training is not complete."

"I mean, why did you agree to train me at all?"

"Well, speaking for myself; all crabby old men learn the value of tormenting the younger generation at some point." Luke said plainly. "But that's me. As I recall, I didn't invite you. I first wanted to be a Jedi because of my father. Why are you here?"

Rey winced. "To do good?"

"You don't seem to be that impressed by 'good'."

"To save the galaxy?"

"Try again."

Rey winced harder. "For Finn."

Luke smirked.

Rey looked down. "Not much of a reason, I know…"

"I began my training to save a princess I had never met." Luke commented. "The Living Force exists in everything, apprentice. The galaxy, and the grain of sand. A candle and a star… A tree and a baby bird. A billion innocent lives, and one close friend." He pulled her chin up so that she wasn't looking at the ground. "Tell me about Finn."

"He came back for me." Rey said, as though that was enough to fill volumes.

"Is that enough to dedicate your life?"

"I spent my life waiting for someone to come back for me." Rey said tightly. "Finn and Han Solo were the most important thing to happen to me since the first time I got sand in my shoes."

"And you wish to avenge them."

"Yes."

"Vengence is not the Jedi way."

"I thought Jedi were about Justice." Rey countered. "You're Knights. Jabba the Hutt, Darth Vader, the Emperor… I've been hearing these war stories as frontier legends and then Han tells me they're all true? Jedi fire is meant to be a force for Justice."

"This is true. In many places, the fire of the Jedi is the only light that can shine in darkness forgotten by all but the warlords." Luke agreed. "But…"

"But you're not sure about me yet." Rey said flatly. "The last time you took an Apprentice…"

Luke nodded.

"And just showing up out of nowhere with a long lost sword, taken from you by a Sith Lord, doesn't offer much in the way of credentials."

"Oh, I was expecting you." Luke said blandly… And tossed another metal bar at her.

She struck out as fast as she could, missed again, and the new bar fell, untouched. Skywalker gave her that placid look.

She was growing to hate that look. "More push-ups?"

"More push-ups. And from now on, every time you miss, you do another drill."

* * *

Meditation was getting easier. Rey had always known to trust her instincts, but for the first time, she was able to direct those… reactions. Instead of having to be there, she could reach out. It was like gaining an extra limb, extra senses…

"I didn't have a clue what you meant when you said 'stretch out with your feelings' but it seems so obvious now." Rey said one day, during her meditations. "What did you mean, when you said that you knew I was coming?"

"I sensed an awakening in the Force. Light and Dark." Luke hummed.

"Me?"

"Hard to be sure. Prophecy is a poor guide to the future. The Force is like a river. It turns one way or another, but it finds it's way to the sea." He looked to her. "Who else could it have been?" He asked. It wasn't rhetorical. It was an actual question.

Rey gave it some thought. "I don't know… Discussions about the Force are very…. Abstract and metaphorical. I am neither of these things."

Luke chuckled. "It would have to be recent. It would have to be someone who was likely at the balance point between light and darkness, someone who demonstrated some aptitude with the Force, or at least the Arts… Most Jedi have shown talent for things, unaware of where their natural skill came from. For me and my father, it was piloting." He smiled at her. "If you've Inherited the Falcon, then you must be quite the pilot yourself."

Rey smirked. "I could just… feel it. Poe Dameron says that flight is about insitnct and reaction times. About being able to see the whole 'scope in three dimensions and always know where you are."

"That is The Jedi Way." Skywalker nodded.

Rey chewed her lip, and froze. "What about Finn?" She asked suddenly. "That 'Awakening' you sensed… Was it around the time that Finn found me? Maybe a day or two before?"

"Yes." Luke nodded. "But that doesn't mean anything. Disturbances in the Force can be felt in advance, for one that knows how to look."

"Finn had an 'awakening' of his own then. He was a Stormtrooper, never even had a name, but he refused to kill a whole town of innocent people on a combat mission… If he had latent force ability, maybe being present when they were… extinguished, was enough to awaken him; break through their indoctrination. Light and Dark, you said…" She suddenly looked worried. "What if it's both of us? Within two days, I was touching the Dark Side, and he'd just discovered his Light."

Luke held up a hand. "Don't mistake anxiety for realization, young apprentice. You are just taking your first steps in a world full of power and opportunity and temptation. So was Finn. As you say, the Force can be abstract and metaphorical in it's warnings."

"Finn had no talent for flight, but… He fought Kylo Ren with this saber, while I was still trying to find my feet. He fought against his own master; and while I'm no expert, I do know that doing that is the height of blasphemy for a Stormtrooper; the way they're brainwashed. He held his own for a long time, untrained."

"As did you… And for the same reason. To rescue the only person left that he had felt connection to." Luke reminded her. "But now I sense great fear in you."

Rey nodded. "You sensed an Awakening. Light and Dark. If it wasn't one of us, but  _both_  of us… Does that mean Leia sent the wrong person to you? You said that the Force guides us to where we should be, if we listen. My path lead me to Kylo Ren's prison, where I used the Force and he could offer me training. Finn's path lead him to BB-8, which would have brought him to you. I took to using the Dark Side, and Finn chose to renounce the First Order. What if we took each other's path accidentally?"

"So certain, are you? That your path should be in darkness?" Luke looked at her. "Or is it just easier to assume that?"

"If my fam-" She caught herself. "If someone saw there was Darkness in me, something inherently bad… Then maybe that's why I was left on Jakku."

"And it's easier to assume that it must be your fault, rather than wonder if something had happened to them, or perhaps that they just didn't want you."

Rey bit her lip. "I… went through a lot of thoughts like that." She admitted. "I don't want to be the bad guy. I want to kill Ren, but… I don't want to take his place."

"Nor did I, with Vader." Luke said. "I came close, to giving in to my own Dark Side. But in the end, I had seen where that path lead, and I was just close enough that I refused to go further. The way to fight evil is not to overwhelm it, but to renounce it."

Rey nodded, learning. "I hope…" She shook her head.

"To do good or bad is a matter that everyone has to deal with, Apprentice. Jedi or not. Leia has to decide which tactics to use, a soldier has to decide whether to spare an enemy or kill him." Luke explained. "Everyone is tempted to be selfish, to take something that belongs to another, to lie instead of tell the truth."

She nodded.

"The ultimate trap of the Dark Side: When you exalt yourself beyond all others, then sooner or later, yourself is all you will ever have. My father had a wife, position, rank, honor; decorations and kids on the way. When he turned to his own power out of fear; he suddenly had nothing but a mask; and a chain around his throat that stretched light years to his Dark Lord's hand. Kylo Ren… He killed his father." Luke's face didn't chance from the placid calm, but Rey's growing senses felt the sudden spike of pain that went through him. "He killed my friend."

Rey felt a spike. "He may have killed mine too." She said in a very small voice. "I've never had a friend before."

Skywalker nodded. "So, why are you here?"

Rey drew herself taller. "To do what Kylo Ren is no doubt doing right now. Regroup, Reload… Be ready for the next time. Because there will be a next time."

"The Wheel keeps turning." Luke agreed. "Time was, it was up to my father, his wife, his partner. Then it was up to me, my sister, and my best friend. It's a generation later and the wheel has turned again. If you wish to follow this path, it means that it's yours now; to make the Wheel turn to the light."

Rey nodded. "Yes. I want that. For Finn, for Han, for… for me."

Luke tossed the bar. Rey didn't even see the motion, but she was suddenly lashing out with the saber. The bar fell to the ground, in three sizzling pieces.

Rey stared blankly. "I did it!"

"Three? A good start." Luke nodded. "The Force is with you, Apprentice."

Rey shivered.  _Finn, I did it!_  She thought.  _You'd be proud of me._

 

_End_

**Author's Note:**

> What do you think? Could Finn and Rey have taken each other's path accidentally?
> 
> Read and Review!


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